Background: Bedside echochocardiography is a useful tool in critical care setting. Several studies support the performance of echocardiography by non-cardiologist.
Aim of the work: To evaluate if bedside transthoracic echocardiography (done by intensivist) is useful to provide diagnosis of cardiovascular pathologies of patients with acute respiratory failure in respiratory intensive care, and to assess the interobserver variability between measurements done by intensivist and expert echocardiographer.
Methods: Sixty patients with acute respiratory failure admitted to respiratory critical care unit were evaluated by echocardiography by an intensivist and expert echo cardiographer. Interobserver agreement for both readings was done.
Results: results of the present work revealed that, there was strong agreement between the reading of both the intensivist and echocardiographer. In addition, significant abnormalities were present in the examined cases especially diastolic dysfunction.
conclusions: The intensivist detected most abnormalities detected by the expert echocardiographer. The bedside echocardiography is a useful instrument in respiratory critical care unit.